(Bloomberg) -- The United Auto Workers has reached tentative agreements with all three of Detroit's biggest automakers, but it is already planning to make the contracts' expiration date — April 30, 2028 — a call to arms for the entire organized labor movement.
“This allows us to strike on May Day or International Workers' Day,” UAW President Shawn Fain said Sunday night before he announced details of the union's deal with Ford Motor Co.. “It's more than just a day of commemoration. It's a call to action.”
“We invite unions around the country to align your contract expirations with our own, so that together we can begin to flex our collective muscles,” Fain said. “If we're going to truly take on the billionaire class and rebuild the economy so that it starts to work for the benefit of the many and not the few, then it's important that we not only strike, but that we strike together.
The UAW's social media accounts expanded the call by reposting other organizers' social media calls to align more labor agreements to end alongside the UAW's contract.
Mass strikes are a common occurrence in Europe. Just this year, more than one million French people struck to protest the government's proposal to raise the retirement age. Hundreds of thousands of public service workers in the UK — including rail workers, nurses, postal employees and lawyers — struck for higher wages in the face of soaring inflation. In March, German air and rail workers banded together to bring travel to a halt as they demanded more pay.
The UAW's six-week 2024 strike was the first time in its 88-year history that it had struck all three Detroit carmakers at once, instead of targeting one company to achieve a contract that the others would be expected to follow. While each company negotiated separately, they closely watched each other's moves, and the UAW used each new offer to pressure the others.
Ford reached an agreement with the union on Oct. 25, followed by Stellantis NV on Oct. 28. Bloomberg reported Oct. 30 that General Motors Co. and the UAW had reached a tentative deal.
For the Ford contract, this tactic resulted in record pay increases, restoration of cost-of-living increases, job security agreements, full-time jobs for temporary workers and the possibility of bringing future electric vehicle employees under the union's master agreement.
Read More: Ford Deal Includes $8 Billion in Plant Investments, UAW Says
Fain said Sunday that he also intends to use the Ford deal as a calling card to non-union auto factories to convince workers to embrace UAW representation.
“One of our biggest goals coming out of this historic contract victory is to organize like we've never organized before,” Fain said. “When we return to the bargaining table in 2028, it won't just be with a Big Three, but with a Big Five or Big Six.”
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